Alisa Igorevna Selezneva is the main character of the cycle of children's fantasy books by Kir Bulychev "The Adventures of Alisa" and their film adaptations and derivative works, such as "The Mystery of the Third Planet", "Guest from the Future", "Purple Ball" and "Alisa knows what to do!". Alisa is a girl living in Moscow at the end of the XXI century.
In the film adaptations, she was played by Natalia Guseva (1984-1987), Ekaterina Prizhbilyak (1988) and Daria Vereshchagina (2024). In the animated film adaptation, she was voiced by Olga Gromova.
Characteristics[]
Alisa is a school—age girl living in futuristic Moscow at the end of the XXI century. Alisa's appearance is described as follows: a tall girl with short blond hair and athletic build, usually dressed in "men's" clothes (shorts and a T-shirt, or overalls). In most books, her age remains around 12 years old. Alisa is in high school, a member of the circle of young naturalists. According to the book "Alisa's Journey" ("The Girl from Earth"), Alisa is in the second grade ("After all, the third "B" flew away in full force at night in potato sacks on a cargo barge. They will be at the stadium, but our second grades will not"), while in the book "A Hundred years ahead" Alisa tells a schoolgirl of the late twentieth century Yulia Gribkova that in her time there were "no classes and no letters" in schools, but "only interest groups" (in in the film "Guest from the Future", based on this story, on the contrary, Alisa says that she is in the sixth grade).
Independently, together with her father or friends, she visited many distant planets, in the underground depths and in Atlantis, as well as in the distant past (including the "age of legends" 26 thousand years ago) and in the XX century (1976).
Alisa is the only child in the family. His father is the famous cosmozoologist, professor of zoology Igor Seleznev, director of the Moscow zoo of the future — Cosmozoo. He is the author of many printed works (in particular, the book "Beasts of Distant Planets"), a regular contributor to the galactic journal "Bulletin of Cosmozoology". Mother is the famous architect of the Solar system Kira Selezneva. It is known for the construction of the Nukus Stadium and the cultural center on the Pallada asteroid. Alisa spends much more time with her father than with her mother.
Alisa's character is impulsive, energetic and adventurous. She constantly surprises adults with her childlike spontaneity, resourcefulness and fearlessness. Often her outlandish guesses turn out to be more accurate than the scientific hypotheses of adult scientists. Paired with peers — especially Pashka Geraskin and similar characters — Alisa, on the contrary, often plays the role of a skeptic and a balanced, calm member of the team. Alisa is honest, she is sure that "if you can't lie, it's better not to lie," however, she considers it acceptable to show cunning towards parents or other adults if there is reason to think that adults will interfere with the implementation of plans because of their excessive concern for the welfare and safety of children.
In the representation of artists[]
Evgeny Migunov's version became a classic hand-drawn realization of the image of Alisa Selezneva, although it was somewhat different from the original, author's one: "a short-haired blonde girl in a red jumpsuit" turned into a short and fair-haired Migunov. In Migunov's version, childish signs are emphasized in every possible way, and the sportiness of the author's image is compensated by the dynamism of the drawing. Bulychev has repeatedly said that he now represents Alisa only as "Migunovskaya", and called the artist his co-author.
Migunov's image became a kind of model that many other illustrators make their versions look like, and also influenced to some extent the animated version of Natalia Orlova in Roman Kachanov's cartoon "The Secret of the Third Planet", in which the image of Alisa appeared for the first time in Russian cinema. The prototype of Alisa for the production designer was the seven-year—old daughter Ekaterina Semenova (and the prototype of Captain Zeleny was her husband Tengiz Semenov).
In feature films[]
In the TV films "Guest from the Future" and "Purple Ball" by Pavel Arsenov, the role of Alisa was played by Natasha Guseva. The image of the heroine in these film adaptations is even further from the book than Migunovsky and Kachanovsky — both in appearance and in character. Alisa in these films is an "unearthly" brown—haired girl with a square hairstyle, big eyes and a warm look, trusting, sincere and open. In the movie "Guest from the Future", she wears a short red dress with a white collar, sleeveless and open back. Having moved into the XX century, she dresses in a Soviet school uniform (a brown dress with a black apron) and pioneer symbols.
In the film "The Island of the Rusty General", the role of Alisa was played by Katya Prizhbilyak. Her Alisa is a thin, fragile girl with gray eyes and long dark brown hair gathered in a ponytail, which is the farthest option from the Migunov illustrations.
In the film "One Hundred Years Ahead" in 2024, she was played by Daria Vereshchagina. In this version, Alisa is in 11th grade, and she is a brave teenage girl who regularly trains for fights with pirates with the help of Werther and wants to find her mother, who, according to Alisa, is stuck in the past, that is, in 2024. This version of Alisa also has short hair, but pink in color. At the end of the film, Alisa appears in a dress like her version from the movie "Guest from the Future", but in blue, not red.